Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Romeo and Juliet vs. The Living Dead

Romeo and Juliet vs. The Living Dead. Dir. Ryan Denmark. Perf. Hannah Kauffmann, Jason Witter, and Mark Chavez. 2009. DVD. Third Star Films, n.d.
While we're on the subject of zombie Shakespeare (and while I'm in between stacks of essays to grade), we can talk about Romeo and Juliet vs. The Living Dead. I got a copy at the beginning of the semester, thinking it might be useful or humorous as supplementary material in my Shakespeare and Film class. And its opening was promising. However, I'm not a fan of zombie films, and I'm afraid this one became tedious rather quickly.

For those of you who might be zomficionados, here's the opening, followed by what amounts to the balcony scene. It will give you a sense of the film, which mixes lines from Shakespeare's play with Shakespeareized lingo (e.g., "Come brush thy teeth"). Note: The clip contains some comic bloody moments (which is different than saying it contains some bloody comic moments).

2 comments:

You know, if that wasn't 95% intro music I think I might have actually liked it. I got the whole "Juliet has been speed dating" thing, and at first I thought Zombie Romeo was specifically chasing Rosaline but it looked like he too was merely looking for love. I have no idea what appendage they were supposed to be eating, but it was seriously gross.

Thanks for the comment, Duane. No, I don't know what that appendage is, either. Whatever happened to the traditional meals for zombies? As Cassius Zombie once said, "O, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains . . . braaaains . . . BRAAAAAIINSSSSSS!

More seriously, the opening is the most promising part of the film. The rest is filled with Pseudo-Pshakespearean dialogue, and it gets really tedious really quickly.

Bardfilmis normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilmis a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:

KJ is a professor of English and Literature at a small Christian liberal arts college. In addition to courses entitled “Shakespeare” and “Introduction to Shakespeare,” he teaches a course called “Shakespeare and Film.” Recently, he developed a course titled “Modern Shakespearean Fiction.” Shakespeare is also integrated into nearly all his other courses, including courses on the Literature of Food and the Literature of Humor. Additionally, he is the author of Bardfilm: The Shakespeare and Film Microblog. But you may have known that already.